"Spare her, Miss Hampden."

I looked up significantly and met Dr. Campbell's mock-reproachful glance, resting full upon me.

"Spare whom?" I asked, very innocently.

"Oh! you wicked critic of human frailties," he answered slowly, "whom do you think?"

I betrayed myself with an ill-suppressed smile which broadened into a genuine laugh as poor Miss Nibbs retired most awkwardly from her post, very well satisfied with herself, no doubt.

During the interval that followed, Dr. Campbell amused himself with the indulgence of a new freak. He leaned his elbow on the back of the chair in front of us, and turning his face towards me supported his head in the palm of his hand. There was a new expression on his countenance which foreboded the tantalising remark that followed:

"Do you know, Miss Hampden," he began, looking at me through his half closed eye-lids, "you are beginning to puzzle me strangely. Did any one ever tell you you are an eccentric girl?"

"Oh dear! yes! my step-mother persuaded me to that comfortable conviction long ago," I answered laughingly.

He followed up this agreeable retort with a most expressive "Ahem!" and then paused a moment before adding in a very emphatic tone:

"Well, you are a queer girl, you know."

"Because I fall short of your standard, I suppose?" I interrupted, passing my hand languidly over my brow and eyes.

"Well that is not a bad guess, Miss Hampden, but that is not the only reason."

The shaft pierced me. Arthur Campbell was not always in a mood to flatter. I wanted to prove to him that two could play at his little game and I hardly knew how to match him.

"I suppose I ought to feel quite grieved at this intelligence," I answered consciously, "but, dear me," with an artificial sigh, "I cannot bring myself to study people's opinions; that is probably one feature of my eccentricity?" I added in an interrogative tone, looking aimlessly at him.

He was silent for a moment during which he looked around the room. Then he stood up saying:

"Let us go outside, I see the music is over."

I rose and took his proffered arm and we turned towards the door. As we passed out my eyes fell upon Mr. Dalton's solitary figure standing by the window opposite. A stern, set expression was upon his countenance, and his glance was riveted upon us. I inclined my head with a smile, but he either saw not or purposely took no notice of it, for he went on staring abstractedly until we vanished into the adjoining room.

For a second time in our lives Arthur Campbell and I were alone amidst suggestive surroundings such as met us as we passed under the heavy curtain that screened the cosiest of boudoirs from the general view.

There is such a special appropriateness about certain circumstances that one cannot help speculating to some extent upon their probable and possible issues. It is a known fact that a vast percentage of society marriages are the outgrowth of these little stolen tete-a-tetes that are snatched from the gay confusion of some noisy gathering. No one will be so unreasonable as to denounce the young heart that flutters with some timid anticipation, as it forsakes the mad merry-making of the ball room for the quiet insinuating stillness of some reserved nook by a flickering fireside, where the flower-laden atmosphere whispers interesting suggestions of its own. Far be it from me to overshadow such gleams of sunlight, by censure or cruel mockery, and when I affirm most earnestly that such flutterings of vague expectation never animated my poor heart, so cold, so empty, so unbelieving, it is not that I hold it outside and above such an influence. I only lay bare the barrenness of its nature and the trustless reserve that always made the world around me seem wrapped in a gloomy pall, that inspired me with suspicion, if not altogether fear of it.

I will not take the responsibility of affirming that my views were at all odd or singular, and incompatible with the real condition of feminine hearts at that time. Neither would I like to assure the world that our blooming society girls of to-day are any more credulous or unwisely susceptible than many were at the date I speak of. It has become a popular belief, I think, that beauty coupled with a fascinating manner in a woman, is as heartless and unfeeling as a stone, and yet is just indifferent and neutral enough to abstain from inflicting any more direct pain than that to which its indiscreet victims expose themselves knowingly. There is a certain pity excited by human moths that flutter about our drawing-rooms with their smooth velvety wings charred and disfigured, but even in the sympathy expressed there is a ring of "I told you so," and "beware the next time" that makes the sufferer's burden only heavier to endure.

I can not take upon me to say that Arthur Campbell's beautiful pinions had touched the dangerous flame with any alarming results. I believed him to be very human in spite of his multiplied efforts to establish himself above or below that limit. I saw, when our acquaintanceship was only an hour old, that he was an artful man and, to no small extent, a conceited man. I did not suspect him of regulating his life according to the dictates of a scrupulous conscience. In fact I daresay I was uncharitable enough to look upon him as wanting that blessed monitor, altogether. He professed no definite religious belief, and generally held all creeds to be equally good. Sometimes when he wanted to excite the particular interest of some orthodox young lady he leaned towards the agnostics, and without upholding their tenets, exactly, wanted to know why their right to establish themselves should be so universally questioned and condemned. He liked to see pretty faces looking shocked, and his ears revelled in the sound of a plaintively persuading voice that argued on the side of old truth; he would even allow himself to be converted for the moment by a reproachful look from indignant blue eyes. It gave a flavour to a languid flirtation and "after all," he was wont to say, "what religion can be better than that whose ministers are fair and beautiful women."

He was an acknowledged flirt; a regular knave of Hearts; and yet totally unlike those professional lady-killers who carry their smooth chins so very high above their would-be rivals in fashionable drawing-rooms. There was no insinuation of his purpose or design about Arthur Campbell as he stepped quietly in among the many coteries of which he was a spoiled darling. His profession excused him for his late arrivals everywhere, and, in the bargain, granted him ample opportunity for intruding himself upon the notice of everyone present without being condemned for presumption or conceit. It was whispered of him that his private life was based upon free and easy principles, and that he was not altogether so circumspect a walker in the ways of righteousness as he was in the ways of society. Such an accusation, however, remained perforce under an open verdict. Too many of those who might have decided against him had delicate glass-houses of their own to care for, and it would likely prove a treacherous missile that would aim at the well-propped reputation of Doctor Campbell.

I had my own private opinion about him, which never prevented me from openly admiring his tactics, from enjoying his company, and, in a sense, from coveting his attentions. Strangely enough, I had every opportunity for indulging all three. We were thrown frequently together, and I could not help seeing that he took more than a passing notice of me. To tell the truth, until a certain time I never questioned the possible motive that might have inspired him to seek my company. I met him always with a cordial, and may be a very cordial, smile. He was an interesting man, who talked well, and as such appealed largely to my ardent appreciation. We became friends in a very little while, and probably contributed largely towards each other's mutual enjoyment. But very soon the all-seeing eye of a jealous scrutiny was upon us, and we were singled out wherever we went. Little rumors were being hatched, destined before long to creep out from under the great fostering wing of that old hen, Gossip, who is ever chuckling over some new and active brood. People caught the message and repeated it with a relish. People said that young Campbell was no fool in aspiring to succeed to Dr. Hampden's practice. People said: Trust the fellow to spy out a rich man's only daughter. People said: The Hampdens have made a dead set on Campbell, always asking him to luncheon, etc. People said: He is fooling her. In fact people gave expression to every uncomplimentary sentiment which the circumstances could possibly suggest, and it was only then that I turned my attention to the matter at all. I heard the floating verdicts that were being pronounced upon us, and thenceforth I also infused a certain purpose into our hitherto aimless relationship. I quietly resolved to meet that respectable body so widely known as the "people" in open combat. I needed no formidable weapon, an old halter would answer my purpose fully, for of course my readers know that this loud-voiced authority, this much feared power, this braying denouncer of men's private, social, or moral attitudes is only our friend the ass in a pretty well-fitting lion-skin, not nearly so dangerous as timid souls imagine, a nuisance certainly, but that is all.

When Arthur Campbell and I vacated the crowded drawing-room, therefore, and passed into the quiet retreat opposite, many a significant glance followed us besides poor Mr. Dalton's. I knew it and so did he, although no mention was made of it by either of us. We had drifted imperceptibly into that phase of a growing friendship which is silent upon certain interesting topics. We often talked in a vague and general way about the tender influences, but never now by any chance allowed our random remarks to convey any personal reflections. We were puzzling over one another, which is a fatal resource for unfortified hearts, but we prided ourselves upon our well-guarded and invulnerable affections, and, in a way, playfully defied the inevitable to conquer us.

Arthur Campbell held the heavy drapery aside until I had glided into the room. He then drew it briskly across the doorway and followed me to an ebony cabinet before which I had stood to look at a comical crockery pug that lay on one of its tiny shelves. He glanced over my shoulder at my interesting distraction, and was silent for a moment. I could feel his breath upon my hair and ear, then he said slowly:

"You seem to be fond of animals, which is your favorite?"

An answer rushed to my lips and I was conscious of a mischievous expression creeping over my face. Had I reflected for a moment I might never have uttered it, but before I had time to weigh my words, they had been pointedly pronounced.

"Man—of course," I said; "Which is yours?"

He did not answer as quickly as I had, and yet I did not dare look at him or speak again. After a moment's pause, however, I ventured to raise my eyes towards the cabinet, and as I did so, how my heart thumped, how my cheeks reddened. He had stretched one hand out to reach some object that stood on one of the ebony brackets above me, and the reflection in the little square mirror before us was, to say the least, rather suggestive. The bracket being higher than the mirror was not visible in it. The effect produced therefore was that of a broadcloth sleeve, carefully brought around two slender shoulders, and a handsome manly countenance leaning a little towards a blushing maiden's face. Worse than all, he too happened to look into the glass at the same moment, and our eyes in shrinking from one another's glance met under an awkward circumstance. He looked steadily at Amey Hampden in mirrorland, and then said in a very conventional tone, turning his eyes towards the bracket:

"Pardon me, I want to show you something."

It was a beautiful white dove which, though lifeless, had retained much of its grace and softness. In its beak was a dainty little card upon which was inscribed in large characters: "Love one another."

"Do you like it?" he asked after we had examined it silently for a moment.

"The idea is certainly original," I answered evasively.

"Yes, but do you like it?" he repeated

"Which?" I asked, "the bird, or the idea altogether?"

"The idea altogether."

"Oh! ye-e-s," I drawled as indifferently as I possibly could. "It is a very chaste conception on the whole—but—"

"But what?"

"Oh! there is not much in it after all."

"Miss Hampden! you astonish me! Not much in loving one another, especially with such an exalted, enduring love as that which the dove symbolises."

"You mistake me, Dr Campbell," I interrupted suddenly, looking up at him, but I did not finish, for some one just vanished out of the doorway as I turned my head. The curtain was still swaying when I stopped my remark abruptly, and Arthur Campbell following my glance, strode towards the entrance and looked indignantly out. The passage was clear, and he returned, laughing, saying the eavesdropper was no one more formidable than the draught. I was not so easily convinced, however, and asked to go back in to the drawing-room where the merriment was still unabating. He did not seem quite pleased, but nevertheless offered me his arm unhesitatingly, and we passed in among the noisy crowd just in time for the summons to supper.



CHAPTER VII.

When I awoke the morning after the Merivales' Musical, the forenoon was already pretty well advanced and a light, warm fire was burning in my room. Outside, the winter wind was shrieking plaintively, and over every pane of the window were dense layers of frosty ferns and grasses. It wanted a few minutes for the half hour after ten by the prattling little time-piece on the mantel. I arose and dressed languidly, feeling dull and oppressed and rang for a cup of strong coffee. I felt no appetite for breakfast, and drawing my warm, heavy wrapper around me I wheeled a low easy chair toward the fire and sank wearily into it.

It may be a wise policy for the votaries of gaslight pleasures to maintain that there is no baneful result arising from a constant pursuit of such distractions, but, however wise this attitude may be, I hardly think it can rely upon the sanction of our conscience. It is certainly not sound truth. For the abnormal life which society prescribes for her followers is fruitful of most injurious consequences. Evil effects do not always thrust themselves upon our notice in any directly pronounced way. Very often those which are most pernicious have a stealthy and unobtrusive progress, and it is only when their destructive mission is well accomplished that we become aware of their existence. There are physical, moral, and mental wrecks, the playthings of every varying circumstance that agitates the sea of life, who are living examples of the truth I uphold: men and women who have made an oblation of their greatest energies and capacities to lay upon the altars of a profitless materialism. This is of course the extreme limit of worldliness, but in many cases it had a tame and semi-respectable beginning, originating from circumstances as seemingly safe as those which make up our own individual lives. Who can tell whether danger will allow us to tempt and tease her with impunity. The fortifications around our personal lots are not so stable as we imagine, and they require our constant and vigilant supervision. While we are feasting and rioting the scouts of the enemy are conspiring strongly against us.

For myself I say, that every indulgence of this kind invariably brings me an uncomfortable re-action, and I have never been able to satisfy myself with the explanation which is popularly received regarding it. It is not merely the result of physical disorder, of that I am sure. There is not a morbid tendency, ever so latent within me, that is not brought forcibly to the surface during this re-action, and I never realize so fully that the pleasures of the senses are empty and fleeting as when I have given myself up to an unbridled indulgence of any of them. I have rested my eyes upon every conceivable form and phase of animate and inanimate beauty in my life-time, and to-day my poor eyes are tired and dissatisfied. My ear, that has been inclined to every sort of sweet and sad melody, is still waiting and hoping for a soul-stirring refrain that will never reach it; and my heart, that has quickened at glad surprises and fluttered during hours of the world's happiness, is still asking, still searching for a joy that will minister in full to its demands. No wonder then that so many of us pause in the midst of our gay confusion, and ask ourselves wearily: "What is the use?"

What is the use of all these vain efforts of ours to feed our inner appetites with a diet that can never nourish or sustain? What is the use of all these monotonous beginnings that never have any tangible end? What is the use of playing so burdensome a part upon the social stage? What is the use of deceiving ourselves and our fellow-men, when there is such a glorious cause of truth to fight for? Ah! it is the way of the world, and that is a power which we fear to defy. The way of the world! These little words have justified sin and crime over and over again. They have masked the vilest cunning with a surface of unquestionable propriety; they have quietly sanctioned one fashionable folly after another, until vice and virtue are brought to one level, ay, and if needs be, the former triumphs, and the latter is shoved aside to make headway for its counterfeit. It is the way of the world that poverty be sneered at and denounced, that humility be ridiculed, that modesty be mocked, not openly not daringly, but by covert and cutting insinuation, the ever are weapon of the moral coward. It is the way of the world that sorrow be held pent up in hearts that are dying for care and sympathy, the way of the world that selfish motives be the best, that might is right, and indeed who can say our dazzling, splendid, cruel world has not its way? And we, its victims, its votaries, what recompense have we?

Such reflections as these trooped in solemn order before my mental vision as I sat staring into the coals, that frosty morning after the Merivales' entertainment. Every circumstance of the preceding night rehearsed itself in my memory. I repeated Arthur Campbell's every word. I had not forgotten one. I recalled Mr. Dalton's steady look, even Miss Nibbs' funny little personality rode upon the embers, and brought a faint smile to my pensive countenance. I teazed myself with interrogative conjectures of every kind, now leaning towards one, and now towards another. Somehow the vagaries of our hope or of our fancy, like ourselves, look their best by gas-light, and show a very disappointing complexion in the open daylight. While I sat thus weaving and tangling the webs of my aimless thought, the door opened and my step-mother glided in with a dainty little note between her fingers.

"Lazy girl," she muttered in a half yawn, throwing the note into my lap. "Rouse yourself, and read this. An answer is wanted."

It was from Alice Merivale, to my surprise, and appeared to have been scratched off in a hurry:

"If you have nothing on hand for the afternoon, dear Amey, I wish you would come over at about one o'clock and take luncheon with me. It is so stupid. A. M."

I folded it up and smiled, as I went in search of my writing materials.

In half an hour after I was waiting to be admitted into their house. I was shown into Alice's apartment according to her direction. She was lying on a lounge by the fire, with her delicate hands clasped over her shapely head. Her long, yellow hair fell in soft braids on each slender shoulder. She wore a negligee of white, with delicate trimmings of swan's down and looked, on the whole, the living impersonation of luxury and beauty. When I was shown in she greeted me with a languid smile, but did not alter her comfortable position.

"I am so glad you've come, Amey," she said looking up at me where I stood beside her. "Just throw your becoming wearables anywhere there and come and sit down for a chat."

I did as she told me, and a moment later we were both settled luxuriously before the glowing embers ready for mutual entertainment.

"Did you think I was crazy, Amey, when you received my note this morning?" Alice asked, drawing the vagrant folds of her soft wrapper about her.

"Well, no, Alice," I answered slowly, "but I found it a little queer, that was all."

"Queer world, is'nt it Amey?"

I smiled, and still looking into the fire said, as if in soliloquy.

"How much alike we girls are. I came to that very conclusion an hour ago before my own embers."

"What reason have you to think that?" she said, with a wondering look in her beautiful blue eyes.

"Every reason in the world."

"And I have so often envied you, Amey Hampden, and thought you a fortunate and happy girl beside a wretch like me."

"Alice!" I broke in, in consternation "how can you talk like this? You, the spoilt darling of Fortune herself, you, the cynosure of so many eyes, the possessor of untold worldly comfort and happiness."

"Go on, go on, I like that," she interrupted ironically.

"Well, you know you are," I added emphatically.

"A wretch! yes, without a doubt" she answered firmly. "I am rich in that which can buy everything but peace of mind and contentment of heart. I am fortunate enough to escape that experience which gives a flavor and a charm to existence. I am the cynosure of eyes that are content with surface glitter only, and the possessor of comforts and happiness that have made my life the empty, blighted thing it is."

She paused while the sound of her altered voice vibrated in the room, then laughed a merry, artful little laugh and rising languidly to her feet, added:

"Oh, dear! oh dear! what funny people we are!"

Before any more was said upon this tender subject we went down to lunch, laughing and chatting as gaily as though we were the freest-hearted creatures in existence.

We spent an hour in discussing the good things below, and then went back arm-in-arm to the cosy apartments we had vacated above. The fire had been renewed and our seats still in the same suggestive places attracted us towards them again. Alice threw herself upon her lounge and hummed a snatch of her last night's selection, which she suddenly interrupted with a fully-indulged yawn out of which again emerged a taunting

"Come now Amelia, a quoi penses-tu?"

"I was thinking of you," I answered, "you are such a queer girl."

"You will be still further convinced of that opinion when you know a little more about me," she said in a jocosely earnest tone. "You know I intend to go to Europe in a fortnight, ostensibly to see the time-honored sights, to gloat over venerable art, and improve my mind generally with such a broad view of experience, but Oh! what a blind that is!" she exclaimed in mock indignation. "Of course everybody knows that I am being sent out to seek my fortune, matrimonially speaking. I am too rich, and too beautiful, and too accomplished to be thrown away upon a self-made Canadian. I must go in search of patrician smiles across the sea, and win them for a plausible cause."

She curled her lips into an expression of supreme disgust, as she finished, and began to toy with the end of one golden braid.

"You don't mean half of what you say, Alice," I interposed quietly. "Since you are not satisfied with all the good things the gods have provided so far, I know only one other that can infuse a soul into your vapid and savor less comforts. It is possible for your present gloom to be dispelled by the warmth and brightness of a sunshine that cheers the loneliest lives, and I think you can never be happy without it."

"What is it?" she asked curtly.

"Love," I answered, "honest, stable, earnest love."

"Faugh!" she exclaimed, flinging her delicate braid away from her caressing fingers, "is that all?"

"That is all, a mere trifle if you will, but it is the axis around which men's temporal happiness revolves."

"Men's perhaps, but not women's," she added proudly. "I tell you what, Amey, the world waits for no one, each age has its manners, and customs, its social peculiarities and special features since the beginning of time men have had to be led by the age in which they lived, and ours is no exception. Once upon a time marriage was a contract conducted on the great principle of buying and selling. Civilization with deft and tender fingers has smoothened away the rough and repulsive aspect of such a custom, and our ministers now ask, with a bland affectation of pastoral solicitude, 'Who giveth this woman away?' Giveth her! forsooth; and in nine cases out of ten how dearly is she bought! Why, we women are selling our bodies and our souls too, for that matter, every day that comes and goes. But we cannot help it," she added after a short pause, "and fortunately circumstances are trained to suit our dilemma. I shall go across the Atlantic for inspection, and if all goes well I shall return bespoken for life. I shall certainly not marry for love, and as compensation must be found somewhere, I will marry for position. I have the wealth myself."

Her words chilled me. Their tone was cold and hard. I looked at her and said half sadly,

"Alice, why do you talk like this? You have drifted into this peevish sort of pessimism without forethought. How can you deliberately sit in a shadow when the sun is shining all around you. With beauty and riches and intelligence you have the keys to a world of happiness. I cannot think why you should choose to hold this dreary outlook before your eyes. It seems a strange contrast to the popular belief that prevails about your happy condition."

She curled her thin, pretty lips into a smile of incisive sarcasm and drew a weary breath before she answered me. Then she said in a half melancholy tone:

"Yes, I know that it is the fate of rich people to be envied. I know that my different circumstances are coveted by girls that are a thousandfold happier than I, and it is a miserable thing to realize, but how can I help it? Amey, to tell you the wretched truth, I am sick of life, and if there can be respite for me in death, I wish I might die tonight. You may think this is the fruit of a gloomy mood, but it is the result of long reflection. Last night I was gay, I sang and played and chatted merrily. Men admired and flattered me, but what is left of it all to-day? Nothing but ashes. I know that what they said was not sincere, and still I remember it all with a girlish gratification. If we were always singing and dancing, and fooling one another, life might be more endurable, but these intervals of dreary re-action are a dear price for our social pleasures." She paused for a moment and then added slowly.

"Sometimes I am tempted to renounce my wordly life and go quietly into some holy retreat where all such troubles are kept at bay, and then the thought becomes repulsive when I think of how worthless I have been, and how worthless I would still be among useful women."

She laughed drearily as she uttered these words and came towards the fire saying

"What a fuss I make about a little human life, eh Amey?"

"It is right that you should," I answered gravely, "it is dearer to you I suppose than anything in the world."

She stroked my hair affectionately and we both looked into the fire. One of her dainty slippers rested on the fender, one of her jewelled hands lay tremulously on my shoulder.

I knew that something should be said to her while this mood was on her, but what right had I to speak? I, who advocated every dreary conviction she had just uttered! I, who was so wretched and tired of my own life, what could I say to cheer or encourage her? My heart was full, but my lips were dumb. Something was telling me that there was no perfect happiness for women on earth, but I could not permit myself to express so gloomy a belief at this critical moment, when a fair, young, beautiful creature stood waiting beside me for a stimulus to hope and perseverance.

While I sat reflecting, she herself interpreted my mental soliloquy.

"This is the way with all of us, Amey," she said in a quieter and gentler tone. "I never knew a woman who, if she told the truth, could pride herself on being happy. It is beyond the narrow limits of our present sphere. The maids that wait upon us envy us and think that in our places they would have nothing left to wish for. The discontented seamstress that stitches away at my expensive dresses fancies they must shelter a happy heart, whose lot she covets; and all the while I am wishing for anything else in the world besides what I have. Whether we marry or remain single, life is a burden to us. We go on from day to day wondering how we may best dispose of ourselves. And nothing ever comes of it but this miserable discontent which leaves no possible margin for hope for the morrow. If one could only make a virtue of the resignation which is thrust upon one by an undaunted destiny," she concluded with a long-drawn sigh, "one might be the better for it."

"Yes," I answered earnestly, "if one only could! I do believe that the only sweetness in life is in being good, and those only who have never practised virtue, doubt it. For myself, when I have devoted some time sincerely to my religious duties I know that I feel a better, and most certainly a happier, woman. My life has a higher aim, my ambition a safer guide, and my efforts a more stable support, but I am not always faithful to my good resolutions and I am easily won away from devotional pursuits."

"Well then, Amey, you must blame yourself if you are not thoroughly happy," Alice interrupted almost fiercely. "You have this great advantage over me. I have no religion. I never had any. I am supposed to belong to the Church which we occasionally frequent. I am supposed to take a lively interest in foreign missions and the Jews. I am supposed to sanction a doctrine which has never been explained to me; but do I? Not I. Only for the instinctive belief which I cannot help holding in God and a life to come, I would be no more than a very animal; and only for a something within me—a sort of moral regulator, which the Church calls conscience, I would never stop to question what is right or what is not. This is all the religion I have ever known. I have been brought up with the conviction that most creeds are tolerable, but that my own is the most fashionable, and it is certainly an easy one to live by, so I have never questioned it much. I should not care to fast or abstain or kneel as much as you Catholics do. I should abhor accusing myself, in sincere humility, of my wrong-doing, or making amends for every trifling misdemeanor, and as my religion does not ask me to do anything I dislike, I cannot quarrel with it."

"Certainly not, if you are happy in it" I put in quietly.

"I am not happy in it" she answered snappishly "but I could be I dare say, if it only assumed an authority over me; if it commanded where it counsels; if it exacted where it approves only, if it bound me under pain of grievous sin as yours does."—

"Ah! if it did! if it did, it would be no longer the same religion. It would lose nine-tenths of its present advocates. However, it is not my intention to enter upon a religious dissertation. I would not disturb your present convictions deliberately for the world, but if you wanted my assistance or asked it, I should be glad to give it to you. One thing I will tell you, however, before I go" I added, rising and confronting her, "it is a deep wrong you do your soul in allowing it to be assailed by so many doubts which you do not take the trouble to satisfy. There are many like you, Alice, I know a dozen whose souls are riding the unstable surface of a religious speculation. This is tempting God, and you owe yourself the duty of satisfying every want of your inner being. There is a why and a wherefore for everything, therefore clear away the dark clouds that lie between you and Truth. Study and read and reflect, until you can lay your hand in good faith upon your heart, and say: Now I have found the consoling truth, now my doubts have disappeared and my belief is made sure, and staunch, and consoling. That religion which shall best purify you, whose motives are entirely supernatural, which shall oblige you to exalt all humanity over yourself, which shall infuse a holy motive into your every thought, word and deed, which shall fill your life with a purpose unlike any it has hitherto known, shall make you happy here and hereafter—and if you like, you can find it with a little search."

We said no more on any subject. The afternoon was well-advanced already, and bidding her a fond good-bye, I left her with a promise to see her again before her departure for her much talked-of trip.

Leaving the Merivales' house, I wended my way in a moody silence toward my own home. The wind was rising and small snowflakes were drifting cheerlessly about in the raw wintry air. I bowed my head against the storm and plodded silently on. I was thinking of many things the while, and allowing myself to become absorbed in an earnest rehearsal of my own prosy life. Other people passed by me with better reasons to sigh I am sure, and yet mine was a deep-drawn breath, full of meaning and misery, which I would have controlled had I not been so distracted and absent-minded at the time.

I doubt if anything could have awakened me from my reverie so suddenly and so effectually as the measured slow accent which broke upon my ear at this juncture.

"How do you do Amey?"

Simple enough: a mere conventional greeting if you will, but I felt it vibrate through my whole system. I looked up and saw Mr. Dalton standing before me. The way was narrow, and he had moved aside into the deep snow to let me pass. Involuntarily, I stood and looked up at him. I felt more kindly toward him than I had ever done before, I knew not why. In some vague uncertain way he had been associated with my recent thoughts, not asserting himself as any distinct feature in connection with my cogitation, but underlying it with a merely insinuated influence that made his presence felt in a secret, undetermined sort of way. I had been wondering about him and questioning his motives within myself as I plodded through the sprinkled streets and now, he was standing before me, a real personage, the substance of a dreamy memory of him which I had been dwelling upon since my departure from the Merivales'.

When we had stopped and saluted one another an awkward silence ensued. I felt as if he had read my secret in my tell-tale countenance, but his face wore that passive look it always wore and his voice was calm and commonplace as usual as he asked.

"Are you going home now?"

"Yes" I answered, "I have been visiting Alice Merivale. I had luncheon with her and a little talk."

"I will go back with you if you like," said he turning around to follow me.

I assented of course, and we hurried on to where the path was wider that we might be companionable and walk side by side.

"You had a little talk you say? I fling discretion to the winter wind, and ask, what about?"

"It is a wonder you don't say whom about" I returned with some emphasis.

"It is" he answered. "I must have been distracted indeed not to have put it in that way, however, it will do now, will it not?"

"Quite as well" said I, "for early or late the question can elicit no definite answer, as we talked of no one."

"What?"

"Surprising, isn't it?" I asked satirically, "nevertheless it is the startling truth."

"Maybe so," said he softly. "I thought on the day after an event such as last night's young girls had a great deal to say in confidence about people and things. I see I have been mistaken, although—"

"Although what?"

"Well—although last night lay itself particularly open to an interesting criticism, I think."

"Musical evenings generally do I think."

"I mean everything else but the music."

"What else was there?"

"Desperate flirting or earnest love-making, I wish I knew which."

"I wish I could tell you really, Mr. Dalton, but you seem to know more about the matter already than I do."

"I cannot help it Amey," he said in a muffled tone, then looking up. "It promises to be a stormy night," he added in an entirely new voice.

"I am afraid so" I answered, standing before our own gate. "Will you come in for a moment?"

"Thank you, I have an engagement, good afternoon."

"Good afternoon."

He raised his hat and turned away and I passed into the house filled with the strangest emotions I had ever known. I went straight to my own room and threw myself into a capacious easy-chair near the fire. The gray shadows of the early winter evening were just touching everything around me. I was in an excited mood and for what? A new suspicion had suddenly thrust itself in between me and a happy, satisfying conviction which I had cherished of late. The reader will not question whether there is one thing in life more annoying or more discouraging than to see one's settled belief in anything suddenly uprooted and tossed about by unexpected yet not unpleasant circumstances. Some small whispering voice from the farthest depths of my heart struggled to the surface now and asked me plainly and brusquely to come to an understanding with my inner self once for all, instead of leaning in this half-decided way, now towards one conviction, now towards another.

"I cannot help it, Amey." What was he going to say? What did he think? Why did he stop there? "Desperate flirtation, or earnest love-making. I wish I knew which." Queer thing to say, that. But what a queer man he was! What did it matter to him which it was? Did he mean to allude to Arthur Campbell and me, or was he perhaps thinking of himself and somebody? Why did I dismiss him summarily? If I had urged him to come in he would have consented, and we might have talked it out. We each thought a great deal more than we said, but after all, maybe it was well as it stood. What could he ever be to me more than an old friend—twice my age—and maybe I was too precipitate and presumptuous. How did I know he thought of me in any other light than the child he had always known me? I stood up with this impediment thrown voluntarily in the way, and took off my street apparel. In a quarter of an hour later dinner was served, and I went down cheerfully to the dining-room.



CHAPTER VIII.

To age and experience, I doubt not that this period of my life seems childish and aimless. There is something in a pair of spectacles, astride the wrinkled noses of maturity, that makes the world of sentiment seem a mere nursery where growing boys and girls amuse themselves carelessly before stepping into their manhood or womanhood. Can it be that this glowing love of which poets sing, is, after all, survived by such a short, uncertain thing as a human life? When we are young it is so easy to believe our love will last unto the very end, and this conviction darts a golden sunbeam across the unborn years: a sunbeam in which our heaviest sorrows become dancing motes, a sunbeam which spans the full interval allotted us between this world and the next. But it is only rational to fear that some of those huge, black shadows which are ever flitting through the "corridors of time" will cross our sunbeam when we least expect it, and yet this is a warning we will not hear, until a personal experience teaches it to our hearts in sorrowful accents.

I had toyed with my own conjectures and speculations all through the gay season. Every where I went I met the same people. I saw the origin, progress, and final consummation of many a love-match, from the formal introduction of both parties, to the glittering tell-tale diamond on the finger of a dainty hand. I had learned many lessons both from passive observation and active experience, and now as the season of feasting and flirting and merry-making was waning into the quietude of advancing spring, I had only to sit me down and rehearse the wonderful little past which had come and gone, bringing wonderful changes to many another heart besides Amey Hampden's.

May came, with its dazzling sunshine and its whispers of summer warmth, and the birds carolled as birds have done every spring-time since the world began. June came, and the bare branches sent forth their tender buds to greet it. The birds flitted from bough to bough and carolled louder and lustier than ever. It was the early summer-time; that short but blissful interval between the ravages of spring and the tyranny of scorching mid-summer. It is our misfortune in Canada to know nothing whatever of the beauty of that spring-time which has been flattered and idolized by poets' pens in every age. With us this intermediate season is nothing more nor less than an eminently uninteresting transition, invariably announced by such harbingers as bare and brown and dirty roads; slushy pathways, running with melted snow and ice; a warm, wet and foggy atmosphere, with great drops falling constantly from the twigs of the trees and the drenched, black eaves of the houses. It is a time for macintoshes and sound rubbers; a golden age for patent cough mixtures and freckles, the sworn destroyer of artificial curls and long clothes. It is true that a glad, golden sunshine floods the earth at times, but what of that, when sullied, muddy streams are rushing and bubbling on with a roaring speed, plunging into hollow drains at every street-corner; when sulky foot-passengers pick their uncomfortable way through all the debris of what had been the beauty of the dead season. Fashionable young men, with the extremities of their expensive tweeds turned carefully up, choose their steps over the treacherous crossways, leaning upon their silk umbrellas with an unfeigned expression of utter disapproval, and ladies in trim ulsters and very short skirts pilot themselves along the unclean thoroughfares, with very emphatic airs of impatience and disgust. This is certainly not the season, in those Canadian cities whose winters are so severe, when "the young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." If there is a time in the year when this worthy sentiment is ignored, and I may say deliberately ostracised, by Canadian youth, it is in the spring. But like all earthly circumstances, this, too, dies a natural death, and is succeeded by a truly enjoyable and suggestive period, that of early summer. It has been my experience to meet with many people who become the victims of a depressing melancholy in the spring. Some acknowledge that it is a presentiment, and resign themselves to many morbid feelings about the uncertain issue of this period of the year; but common sense rejects this theory. It is only natural that after having indulged our every energy while the air was bracing and cold, after having walked and talked, and feasted and danced, and made merry without interruption day and night during the winter months, we should feel a physical prostration in the end, and as a consequence something of a mental depression as well. For my own part, I have always had a reflective and serious spell in the spring-time. Those things that a few months before would have dazzled my eyes and tempted my senses, seem empty and vapid and worthless, and I go on wondering over my recent follies and weaknesses as if I were never to commit them again. It is true that the contemporary season of Lent has something to do with these effects. "Remember, man, thou art but dust," is not the most enlivening of warnings which can be submitted to us for moral digestion, and we who carry these solemn words back from church on Ash-Wednesday morning need not be surprised if our gayer inclinations desert us almost immediately.

All these changes had followed fast upon the receding items of my interesting season, and it was now summer time. My half-brother came back from college, an altered youth, as uninteresting in his transition as the season I have just described. He was an overgrown boy, of that age when boys are seldom interesting except to one another; that age of physical, mental and moral conflict, when the anxious mother can scarcely trust the testimony of her confidence in the future greatness of her growing son; when the calculating father becomes agitated in his eagerness to know if his bashful heir will favor religious, professional, or commercial tendencies, and when the grown-up sister tries to anticipate in a grown-up sisterly way what sort of a drawing room item her now unsophisticated relative will prove to be. This last is the most trying speculation of all. How big a boy's feet invariably look in a fashionable sister's eyes! how long his arms, and how shapeless his hands! Poor blushing youth, is not the ordeal worst for himself, at that period when he scarcely dares trust the most modest of monosyllabic discourses to be articulated by those lips that are warning a waiting public of the dawn of whiskerdom! Freddy, once so lithe and graceful and pretty, had been transformed into an ungainly being, all length, without breadth or thickness. He had not even the advantage of the average immatured youth, he had neither muscle nor physical bulk. He was still a delicate boy with a nervous cough and a fretted look. He was more than ever peevish and self-willed, with this only difference. In his earlier years his selfishness was at least manifested in a dependent sort of way; his thousand wants were made known in impatient requests. Now, it spoke in imperative accents and decided in its own favor, regardless of the comfort or concern of any other person. Of course I was not surprised, for "as the twig is bent so is the tree inclined," but my step-mother was disappointed with the results of all her anxious solicitude, and began to see when it was vain, how thankless such indulgent efforts prove in the end. Freddy's soul was altogether absorptive, taking in whatever offerings gratified him, but yielding no return, and I ask, is there anything so discouraging to an ardent love as this cold neutrality, which proves, without a scruple, that all affection lavished upon it is an irretrievable waste.

As fortune or accident would have it, I was destined to see very little of this relation. Before he had been a fortnight at home I received a letter from Hortense de Beaumont's mother, informing me of the serious illness of my little friend, and entreating me, if it were at all possible or convenient, to go to them for a little while, as my name was constantly on the lips of the dear invalid.

I had begun to wonder at the breach in the correspondence between Hortense and myself, but it had not then been so protracted as to have excited my fears. I attributed her delay to a thousand and one possible impediments, and went on, hoping each day would put an end to my vague conjectures. That day was come at length but the tidings were not what I had prepared myself to hear. I persuaded myself that her mother's excessive love had exaggerated the unfortunate condition of my little friend's health, but, nevertheless determined to go to her as soon as possible. I showed the letter to my father, who had long ago become familiar with the name and attributes of this loved companion, and having obtained his sanction to my eager proposals, I set about making immediate preparations for my journey.

Before ten days had elapsed I was nearing my destination and Hortense de Beaumont's home. My father had entrusted me to the wife of a professional friend of his who was travelling with her son, and whose route opportunely corresponded with mine at this particular time. But I may say with truth that I travelled alone, for with the exception of a few crude observations now and then, the silence of discretion was unbroken between us. The lady was old, bulky, and the victim of a prolonged bilious attack all the way. The son was a red-haired gentleman with very new gold-rimmed spectacles and a scented silk handkerchief. We travelled by rail to Prescott, keeping our peace in contemplative sullenness all the while. The day was hot and dusty, and the car as uncomfortable as it could possibly be.

I sheltered my tell-tale face behind a friendly paper, and distracted myself with an impartial view of the surrounding country. It was early in the afternoon, and the full sunshine lay hot and strong upon the tilled and furrowed fields that stretched away as far as the eye could see on either side. Picturesque little farm houses skirted the road here and there, and stalwart men with their bronzed arms bared to the elbows rested pleasantly on their instruments of toil as the train rushed past them, shouting and waving their broad-rimmed hats until we had left them far behind. Immediately in front of me propped up by innumerable coats and bundles, my lady patron dozed heavily. The thick green veil that screened her bilious expression from the general view quivered and heaved as each deep-drawn breath escaped her powerful nostrils. In her fat lap lay her folded hands with their half-gloves of thick black lace, the pitiful victims of countless flies. The exertion of eating a sandwich had sent her to sleep. The remnants of this popular refreshment were now being actively appreciated by a hungry, buzzing multitude that made their very best of their golden opportunity. Her hopeful heir sat at a little distance on the same seat twirling his thumbs with an apparently decided purpose. Once or twice he drew his scented handkerchief from his side pocket with an artful flourish and frightened the troublesome swarm away from his parent's sleeping form, but seeing their undaunted determination to restore themselves almost immediately, he respectfully stowed the scented article away with a final flourish and re-applied himself to the interrupted pleasure or task of twirling his thumbs with an apparent purpose.

Busied with my own intimate thoughts I escaped an ennui that would otherwise have proved almost unbearable, and was pleasantly enough distracted until the first monotony of fields and farm houses was broken by the outskirts of the romantic town of Prescott—romantic, because to the traveler who steps from the dusty afternoon train and alights amid its unpropitious surroundings, it suggests itself strongly as a living illustration of a "deserted village," as melancholy to look upon as ever sweet Auburn could have been. My drowsy chaperone was awakened too suddenly, and was therefore very cross and ill-humored for some time after. It was with difficulty we persuaded her to follow us along the track, at the end of which loomed up a dismal wooden building whither we directed our vagrant steps, not knowing what better to do. Here we deposited our sundry parcels and awaited some crisis, we hardly knew what. We were informed that our boat would not reach there before evening, and to escape the monotony of our new surroundings we decided to board the ferry which was now nearing shore, and spend the intervening hours with our neighbors across the line. The comfort and compensation which my drowsy chaperone found in a capacious rocking-chair on the upper deck of the ferry restored her ruffled temperament to its original neutrality, much to her hopeful heir's gratification, and sinking into its sympathetic depths, she made a worthy effort to repair her recent rudely broken slumbers.

Her son, with alarming gallantry, placed an easy-chair near the railing of the deck for me, paid the triple fare and discreetly kept at a distance. His bashfulness and timid reserve recommended him to my genuine admiration as much as if it had been pure amiability, or a desire to do me a good turn that had prompted him to leave me to myself.

I was gathering experience on new grounds and I feared interruption from any one. The briny odor of the St. Lawrence carried on the soft summer breeze was grateful and refreshing to me. The brightest sunlight I ever saw was dancing and riding on the green sparkling ripples that wrinkled the broad surging surface before me. Beside me on a bench under the awning sat a party of American ladies from the other side—at least so I conjectured, and with reason. A look decided it. They were clad in pronouncedly cool costumes, dresses that would make a full ball toilet in Canada, but which exposed much prettiness to the ruthless action of the sun and wind on this hot midsummer afternoon. They were using their lips and tongues in a violent manner, accompanying commonplace remarks with the most exaggerated varieties of facial expressions I ever saw. But they were only harbingers of what one meets on landing. These strangely attired damsels in elaborate head-gear and high-heeled shoes strutted about the streets of Ogdensburg in any number. They give life to the pretty town I must admit, and excite the interest of the uninitiated tourist who is accustomed to judge women, especially, according to the standard peculiar to Canada. It is a wonder to me that the drowsy and vapid condition of Ogdensburg's vis-a-vis does not check, in some measure, the animation and spirit of that busy town. There was more life there on that sleepy summer afternoon than I have seen in a month in some of our cities, with all their pretensions. It is only fair to the United States to admit that the spirit of progress and enterprise underlies every square inch of its soil and animates every fibre of its constitution.

In the evening we boarded our boat for the West, and began our journey in earnest. I shall never forget this trip, and I cannot but wonder why. I was alone, for the most part, with my thoughts, which were far from being cheerful companions; still, whenever I steal into the adytum of my memory I find it there to greet me with its peculiar associations.

The evening being warm and sultry we remained on deck for many hours after supper. There was no moon, but heaven's vault was alive with twinkling stars. I sat a little apart from my friends, leaning over the railing, looking abstractedly into the dark restless water. I was disturbed once by my considerate cavalier, who brought me a shawl, saying the night air was likely to provoke rheumatism or neuralgia, or such other inconveniences to which our flesh is heir.

I took it with a grateful smile, made a limited remark upon the beauty of the panorama before us, enquired solicitously about the old lady's comfort and spirits, and then considering my duty accomplished, I wrapped myself warmly in the folds of my shawl and settled myself cosily for another reverie.

With a wonderful acumen, the gaunt gentleman seized the insinuating situation, and considering himself summarily dismissed, he edged away by stealthy strides and left me to my cogitations once again.

Strangely enough, I began to think of Mr. Dalton, and my several interviews with him. He had puzzled me, that was all, there was no harm in wondering about him, surely, if I did not give too much time and attention to the possibly dangerous subject. After all, there was something in him so different from other men, even from Arthur Campbell. There was always some deep, happy meaning to his simplest words, and his most commonplace conceptions of things were flavored with this mystifying attraction whatever it was.

That he had had some peculiar experience was evident in his every look, and tone, and word. His very reserve betrayed him and excited people's curiosity about his past career. I had known him all my life, and he had always been the same. I had sat upon his knee with my tiny arms twined about his neck, he had told me thrilling tales, had played with me, and had kissed me—not often—but on two or three occasions the last time was just before I went to school. Then, when I came back—how strange it was—he seemed surprised to see me grown and matured, while he apparently had remained the same.

I suppose he saw that I was no longer the dependent child who confided to him her petty joys and sorrows, but a young lady, self-conscious and reserved to a certain extent; a young lady with her own pronounced tastes and settled opinions, whose life had drilled out into an independent channel away from the early source which he had been pleased to control and guide.

Perhaps he was taking the right course, and that I had no need to feel disappointed over his attitude towards me, but I was disappointed all the same. I thought he would always be a dear friend, on whom I could lean and rely, but here my thought was checked. Would I have been satisfied with his friendship? Could I have kept within its narrow limits and been content to see him lavish something still more precious upon another?

We are frank at the tribunal of our own most intimate thought, and I know what answer came whispering itself into my heart at this crisis. I roused myself from my reverie and looked out at the changing scenery before us. We were among the Thousand Islands.

Dark broken outlines of trees and rock, with here and there the glimmer and twinkle of a light, the murmur of broken wavelets touching the shore on every side, and the faint sound of happy human voices somewhere in the misty distance, were what greeted my eyes and ears. I could see nothing defined in the wild panorama about me, only that the darkness was broken here and there, by a darker something, from which tall pine-tops reared themselves majestically, less shrouded than the rest. It was a soul-stirring sight, so gloomy, so misty, so silent. I was almost sorry later to have looked upon the same scene by daylight, although the hand of man has put an artificial touch here and there, which, by the light of day, improves the general view.

After all, what are nature's grandest phases to us unless they suggest something of our own selves? I have never been able to look upon mountain or valley with other than my corporal eyes, and I have always admired those places in a half-regretful way, where the print of human footsteps is unknown. There is no perfect beauty in the external world without the presence of man, and all that silent waste of prairie land and towering mountain, which stretches away in an unbroken monotony towards our northern limits, is to me a lifeless, useless mass, and will be so until it has submitted every inch of its wild, untrodden surface to the honest industry of toiling humanity. When these giant mountain-tops look down in friendly patronage upon the gables and towers, and curling smoke-wreaths of some struggling hamlets lying at their feet, I shall see their grandeur and admire it, but where dumb nature sits in lone and pensive solitude away from the hum of golden industry, beyond the reach and influence of civilization, it has for me only a cold surface of beauty like the sleep of death.

This thought came back to me on the following day, when we were riding the restless waters of Lake Ontario. As far as the eye could see in any direction nothing was visible but waves and sky. I tried to imagine myself doomed to live alone with nature's reckless beauty, such as I saw it then above and around me, and my heart shivered at the mere thought of such a terrible destiny. I know "there is society where none intrude," but I prefer to believe "it is not good for man to be alone." All the richest and rarest charms of Nature or of Art have never had more than a relative value for me, but give me one short moment of sympathetic human companionship, and with its borrowed light I see beauty above and around me everywhere. Yet how hard it is for us to find this influence that gifts the hours of time with golden opinions, and bears them away as if to the measure of some hallowed strains. There were human souls of every nature beside me, while I leaned over that sunny deck, looking vacantly out upon miles and miles of heaving water, and yet it was to me as if I stood alone calling after friends that could not hear my far-off voice, no bond of mutual interest, care or devotion united me to any one among that motley crowd. To them perhaps, I was not even a definite individual, but only a fraction of the bulk that moved about the boat in moody silence.

If circumstances such as these did not cross our daily lives at certain intervals, I wonder what would become of all the wholesale moralising and reflections which they engender for most of us. We, who are the playthings of the moods of fate, what would we do with ourselves if these moments of quiet reverie and placid realizations were taken away from us altogether? One thing is certain. Many a noble generous deed, the outgrowth of one pensive hour, would never have been performed; many lives now re-united and happy on account of some calm impartial meditation, would be drifting in lonely wretchedness asunder, the victims of some hasty, ill-explained impediment, that a little reason could easily have removed.

Thus busily entertained by my own peculiar cogitations, time sped without bringing me as much ennui as I had feared. When night fell again we were in view of Toronto City and looked upon our journey as well nigh accomplished. So much is suggested by the distant prospect of giant towers and steeples, the glimmer of countless lights and the muffled buzz of active reality, as one sees and hears them from the deck of a steamer nearing the shore. There were the lusty shouts of boatmen on the wharf, rising above the ringing of discordant bells, and the rumble of railway trains. There was clanging and clashing of metal on every side, hauling of ropes, pitching and heaving of merchandise, with now a shrill scream from the throat of some dainty craft hard by, and again a hoarse sepulchral response from a larger vessel as it came or went. There was a buzz of human voices expressive of every sort of agitation and confusion, and quietly through it all, the great waves slapped against the shore with a heavy monotonous splashing, and bounded back in sullen fury into the depths beyond.

The half-hour after ten rang clearly out from an illuminated clock in a distant tower, as we picked our steps along the narrow gangway, and deposited ourselves with a sense of infinite relief on terra firma once more.



CHAPTER IX.

Hortense was very ill and Madame de Beaumont very disconsolate, when I reached them. The lively, sparkling look was all gone from the pretty face I had learned to love so dearly, only a wasted remnant of her former beauty remained. Who could detect the change more keenly than I? I, who had feasted upon every line and curve that constituted her physical perfection, whose memory had been fed upon the recollection of their rare loveliness, and whose hope had lived upon this expectation of seeing her soon again.

When I arrived she was sleeping, the still quiet sleep of an infant, her breast scarcely heaving as the feeble breath came and went. Her mother was standing by the open doorway in an adjoining room looking in upon the peaceful invalid with tearful eyes. She advanced on tip-toe to meet me, and twining her arms around me led me away down a dimly-lit corridor into a cosy sitting-room at the end, where a cheerful gas-light greeted us. Our noiseless entrance disturbed the solitary occupant, who, as we crossed the threshold, rose up abruptly from where he sat by a small table near the window, and gathering up the books which he had been reading, strode eagerly towards a curtained doorway opposite, and vanished behind the waving drapery, just as we passed into the room.

There was an uneasy look in Madame de Beaumont's eyes for a second or two as they followed the receding figure. Then with an affectation of ordinary solicitude she turned and said to me,

"I did not know that anyone was here. We disturbed Bayard at his studies I am afraid."

"Let us go somewhere else," I suggested a little eagerly.

"Oh," she answered, shaking her head significantly, "that would not bring him back I assure you, we may as well be comfortable here as elsewhere, now. He is such a queer boy."

She was evidently under the impression that I knew something definite about this person who, in spite of his suggestive name, seemed timid and strange as a fawn, but as I had a burning desire to know everything about Hortense's illness I was not tempted to indulge this secondary curiosity, so his name was summarily abandoned for the dear invalid's.

Madame de Beaumont could not account in any definite or satisfactory manner for her daughter's present condition. It was the result, she said, of a growing indisposition that had stolen over her lately, and this was why her fears had such little hope lest her complaint should prove a constitutional decline that would baffle all the skilful efforts of her physicians.

"She began," the mother said in a voice of sobs, "by renouncing all her pleasures. She did not care for one thing and was too tired for another. She took no interest in anything that had distracted her before; she would only read, and write letters to you and in the end she renounced even these relaxations. The doctors suspect that some mental strain may have been worrying her, but I can think of none. All that we could do to make her happy and comfortable we did, and I have never heard her complain, or wish for anything that she had not already. What will I do if I lose her?" Madame de Beaumont suddenly cried, burying her face in her hands and weeping bitterly. "Her father, you know, died of consumption," she added in a hopeless whisper, raising her head and looking at me sorrowfully.

It was a sad scene and one that I was not prepared to meet. I had assured myself that Madame de Beaumont's letter was exaggerated, and now it seemed not to have conveyed to me half vividly enough the actual state of the unfortunate circumstances.

We had some slight refreshment served on the little table before us, but neither of us could partake of it heartily. I swallowed some mouthfuls of food more out of duty than anything else, and indulged myself with a cup of strong tea, my favorite beverage, after which we repaired quietly to the sick-room to have a look at Hortense before retiring.

Faint glimmers of light, leaping from the night lamp that burned dimly on a table by the bedside, danced in flickering shadows every now and then upon her pallid cheeks, but still she slept quietly and peacefully. One would think it was the sleep that knows no earthly waking were it not for the warm look of her paleness, and the feeble throbbing of something in her thin white neck.

"She will spend the whole night like this," her mother whispered, drawing me away. "The nurse watches her steadily and Bayard occupies the next room, but they are never disturbed. She dozes quietly the whole night long. To-morrow she will know you and talk to you. You must go to your room now, my dear, for you are tired and travel-worn. Come, I will show you the way," she added, putting her arm around my waist and leading me out of the room.

When we reached the door we were met by the timid hero of the sitting-room, who now found himself almost in our arms. He was making a stealthy entrance, and we a stealthy exit, and we came upon one another so suddenly that we all three stood motionless and silent for an awkward second or so.

Madame de Beaumont relieved the stupid situation by saying, "Miss Hampden, this is my son, I suppose you know him already by name."

I was too surprised to say or do anything appropriate. I merely raised my eyes and inclined my head a little, and worked my way through the door with an impatience almost equal to that with which he had flown from the room which we had invaded an hour or so before.

In a few minutes more I was safe and secure in my own apartment, free to sit down quietly and make out a calm realization of the whole state of affairs for my own private benefit. The figure I had just left standing in the opposite doorway came back to me now, more clearly-defined in memory than he was to my corporal eyes as they rested on him. He was a handsome fellow, very handsome, but how strange looking, with his rich embroidered gown falling about him in heavy folds, and his cap shoved back off his brow, throwing his marked features into exquisite relief, this was Hortense's brother of whom she had never spoken to me, whose name I had never heard until to-night! This was Bayard de Beaumont!

I stood up and began to unfasten my trinkets, and my eyes were instinctively raised to a picture which hung over the mirror beside me. It consisted of two photographs in a pretty delicate frame, one was Bayard's, the other was a woman's, not his mother's, nor his sister's. It was of some one I had never seen. I raised the lamp above my head and scrutinized it. It was a beautiful face, but one of cold, passive loveliness. There was something in the handsome mouth which made me wince as I looked upon it, and those large speaking eyes. What a depth theirs was, too deep, I thought, too alluring, might not one get lost in such labyrinths as these?

I gazed upon the picture until my hand, exhausted, trembled with the lighted lamp it held, and even then I had not seen it half enough but I turned away and went on in moody thoughtfulness with my final preparations for retiring.

I knelt and said my evening prayers, with many a struggle against teasing distractions, I must admit.

Such a queer nature was mine! I do not know whether others resemble me or not in this respect, but from my young girlhood, I have always been led away by those faces, books, sounds or pictures, that are suggestive of any kind of deep or pent up emotion. I know not exactly whether it be that I look upon them as associated in some dim distant way with my own uneventful life, yet how could that be? What have vagrant strains of unfamiliar music conceived by unknown minds, and played by unseen hands to do with the mechanism of one undreamt of human soul? What can those heart-moving pages of the authors I love, have to do with the issue of an existence of which they have never heard nor thought? What part could these fascinating faces have played in the personal drama of my life, when they have never been called upon to bestow even the tame smile of conventional greeting upon me? What bearing could those speaking pictures have upon the story of my individual experience when they are often the only reflection of days long past and forgotten, children of some pensive artist's fancy that never had another life outside of his conception, than that infused by brush or chisel? Yet it always seems to me that as I look into those books and faces, or as I lend my ear to those engaging sounds, some chord vibrates within me that makes me feel as if my memory were struggling to awake from some lethargy: scenes and sorrows of my yesterdays come back for a short moment to my vivid recollection, and seem to hang around these powerful incentives in a misty halo. It may be the caprice of an extravagant imagination, it may be the freak of a foolish fancy, an empty day-dream, an idle reverie, but to me while it lasts, it is sweeter than any reality.

Thus was it with this picture that hung upon my bedroom wall that night. I could not take my eyes from it. There I lay, tired and travel-worn, on an easy bed; but the light burned beside me and I could not sleep. Something held my gaze fixed upon the opposite wall. I could but stare and wonder at the curious loveliness of that woman's face, and ask myself doubtfully over and over again whether such beauty always engenders proportionate happiness for its possessor.

"And Bayard loved her," I went on in mental soliloquy. "This strange, handsome fellow with the sad face and solemn air." Did he still love her, I wondered, or was she called away in her youthful grace and loveliness to where he could only see her with the eyes of faith? Did he now live upon her cherished memory, isolated from all the profane distractions of social life? Where was she, or who was she, and why had Hortense never spoken of her in all her intimate conversations with me? Was she his wife? May not this picture have got there in some accidental way? She might be a relative. It might have happened that they were just the same size and style of portrait, and were put together on that account. But no! something in the faces of both insinuated a close relationship. They were more to one another, I felt sure, than friend or relative. There was love, quiet, steady, absorbing love in his great dark eyes, as if in resting upon the beauty of that other face they had found happiness and repose forever. They even suggested something of a reproachful love, as if they found those attractions too winning, and not human enough. I almost coveted the respectfully devouring glance of those contemplative brown eyes, for we women with faces of very ordinary fabric cannot believe that men love us altogether as they would if our cheeks were like damask roses and our eyes like dew-kissed violets. Nor do we blame them. Yet how often does it come to pass that a woman's beauty is the stumbling-block to her earthly happiness? With only a face for her fortune, many a bright-eyed, laughing belle has gone out to seek sorrow and misery. The world is full of them, they are rolling in easy carriages up and down the thoroughfares of life, each a pampered and dearly bought idol of some powerful old Croesus, whom to love would be to outrage every principle of nature and worthy sentiment, and, therefore, to live upon milk and honey and be clad in the finest of purple, beauty will sanction her own destruction, living a loveless life, ever haunted by a memory of something brighter and happier that might have been. And all for this, that others may look with admiration, and possibly with envy upon her glittering wealth, or that she may reflect some of the social power and prestige of the man who marries her. She may escape destitute gentility; she may pass into the higher walks of refined society, may be waited upon by many servants, and be the cynosure of eyes that under other circumstances had never deigned to favor her with a casual notice. What of that? She may, at last, recline in an expensive casket, and rich exotics may lie in splendid profusion about her, there may be tolling of many bells and sighing of many friends, but after that? Does the grave show any more respect to these remnants of dainty humanity stowed away in the stillness of an artistic vault, than to the handful of pauper human bones that crumble to their final dust under the unmarked, unnoticed sod?

With such reflections as these, and while my eyes were still fixed upon the fascinating photograph I fell into a deep sleep.

I dreamed strange things that night. Phantom forms with a dark mystic beauty about them glided round me. I saw a woman with long raven tresses and tear-dimmed eyes shrouded in flowing draperies, leaning over a narrow rustic bridge under which dark and muddy water ran in a gurgling stream. Her elbow leaned upon the railing, and her pensive face lay half-buried in one slender hand. She was looking into the depths below, and a great misery was written upon her handsome features. I dreamed that I was hurrying by the spot where she was standing, eager to reach the other side unobserved by her. As I stole with noiseless tread behind her, I heard her talking to the waters in a slow and humdrum monotone:

"Even if I did it," she was saying "he wouldn't care now. No! Bayard wouldn't care, no one would care. Would you care?" She screamed, turning suddenly around and clutching me tightly with both trembling hands. My blood ran cold, my very hair stood up on end, as I saw the wild glitter in her dark, lustrous eyes, and the hopeless frenzy in her harsh and hollow laugh. I wrestled once, with all the strength I could command, and with a piercing scream I awoke! Cold clammy drops lay on my face and hands. My heart was throbbing wildly against my breast. I lay prostrate, paralyzed with fear, staring into the outer gloom. It was just at the turn of the darkness when things are outlined though still colorless and shadowy, and I could see the delicate frame opposite me suspended by invisible cords from an invisible nail—that cursed thing that had haunted me in my sleep and reduced me to this painful condition.

There was a flicker of light through the keyhole and crevices of my bed-room door at this crisis. Someone turned the handle cautiously and finding the bolt drawn from the inside, whispered huskily.

"What is the matter?"

I could not recognize the voice, but sitting up in my bed, I answered faintly:

"Oh! it is nothing. I have had a dreadful nightmare, that is all."

The light flickered again and the cautious footsteps retreated, leaving me alone with the dusk and my fears. I fell back upon my pillow and crept under the warm coverings. I was weak and shivering, and a violent pain darted through my head. In a few moments that seemed like hours to me, I fell asleep again. This time it was a quiet, dreamless slumber, which restored me greatly, and refreshed my looks and my humor for breakfast.

When I awoke a second time, a bright morning sunshine flooded the room. The birds sang lustily outside my window, carts and carriages rumbled along the road; bells were ringing and all the voices of industry and activity were united in a great chorus which proclaimed the advent of another day.

No one spoke of my tragic experience when I appeared at the breakfast table. Madame de Beaumont and her son were already in the dining-room when I went down, and we took our seats almost immediately. Hortense was still sleeping, they said, and looked quite refreshed after the night.

"I hope I did not disturb her when I screamed?" I ventured to remark.

"When you screamed!" Madame de Beaumont exclaimed in bewilderment.

"Yes! did you not hear me?" I asked, just as astonished.

"No indeed," she answered, "did you Bayard?" turning towards her son who sat at the upper end of the table.

"Miss Hampden had supper too late last night," he said, evading a direct reply, "and that with traveling, and the excitement of seeing Hortense so very ill, would disturb any one's slumber."

I thought he intended that the subject of my nightmare, should be summarily dismissed with this explanation, and feeling a little unkindness in the arbitrary way in which he expressed himself, I turned to Madame de Beaumont and with a self-justifying tone remarked:

"It is the first time in my life I have ever had a nightmare, and I cannot account for it. I had been looking at a picture that hangs over the looking-glass in the room you gave me, and do you know it suggested such a queer train of thought, that immediately on falling asleep I dreamed of it, and such a dream! It would have frightened any one."

Madame de Beaumout busied herself among the tea-things while I spoke, and never raised her eyes, but Bayard, laying down his knife and fork, turned his gaze full upon me. There was a covert sneer, I thought, in the look which he directed at me so steadily, and feeling painfully mystified and uncomfortable under the whole situation, I bent my head over my chocolate and sipped it slowly for need of a better distraction. After a moment or so of unflinching staring, the courteous Bayard resumed his breakfast with double the appetite, it seemed to me, with which he began it. This was my uncongenial initiation into my friend's home.



CHAPTER X.

Before the week was out, Hortense, to the surprise and delight of us all, was able to move about from one room to another. She looked white and wasted still, but her old manner had returned to her in a great measure, and she laughed and chatted eagerly with us, one after another, thus giving strong confirmation to the hopes expressed by her medical adviser, who now predicted a rapid convalescence.

The sun was warm and invigorating, and nature at the very climax of her summer beauty, the leaves green and plentiful, and the breeze gentle and refreshing. Everything in the external world tempted one to "fling dull care away" and be happy while these propitious moments lingered with time.

Madame de Beaumont and her son were so hopeful now of Hortense's complete recovery that they ventured to leave home for a week or ten days to attend to some family business that had been delayed on account of her serious illness, but it was with many a parting injunction, regarding the care and attention that should be unceasingly bestowed upon her darling during her enforced absence, that the solicitous mother left me in charge. Anxious to fulfil my pledge to the very letter. I gave myself up to the exclusive companionship of my little friend from that moment. It was indeed a pleasure and a recreation for me, now that she was able to laugh and talk as before.

Two weeks had elapsed since my arrival in Toronto and many strange conjectures had held possession of my mind during this comparatively short interval. I had seen nothing, I may say, of the quiet hero of the household. His time was spent either in the solemn seclusion of his own apartments or out of doors. Occasionally we met going out of, or coming into, a room, going up or down stairs or passing along some corridor. We nearly always had meals together, and on a few occasions he even sat with us for an hour after dinner, but of what good was that? The conversation was tame and impersonal when we were all together, and when we two met by accident there was a quiet mutual greeting which began and ended on the spot.

I was still of the opinion that he was a handsome man and a fine fellow altogether, but the suspicion that he was shrouded in mystery repelled me, despite my best intentions and desires. I have never taken to those deep natures that talk in discreet monosyllables and cling to the sheltering refuge of such safe subjects as are the substance of everybody's and anybody's chit-chat. Maybe I judge them harshly when I persuade myself that the records of their past could not stand the open daylight of a free-and-easy discussion. This verdict is, however, the suggestion of my instinct, and need not carry weight with anyone but myself.

Lest any of the ardent believers in the pre-eminent curiosity of womankind be wondering how I could have restrained my burning desires to ferret out the secrets of this man's life for so long, I must hasten to inform them that conjointly with this feminine weakness I had a most unyielding pride, a pride that absorbed even my curiosity. Though I pined to know the wonderful story of his past, this prevailing vice forbade me to quench my devouring thirst at the fountainhead of satisfaction.

Hortense had not volunteered to open the subject with me, neither had her mother, though both must have known full well that my suspicions were aroused. I did not therefore intend to ask a confidence which could not be given willingly and freely. It was virtually nothing to me what this man did or did not, and as his experience had probably a painful halo about it, I was not eager to refer to it in the remotest possible way.

Before he left with Madame de Beaumont he came into the sitting-room where I was standing, looking out of the window, to bid me good-bye.

He wore a traveling costume of a becoming gray color, and held his hat in one gloved hand. I heard him come in, but purposely did not look around. As he was generally engaged with business of his own when he went in or out of a room, I was not supposed to know that, on this particular occasion, he was making a flattering exception for me. I went on biting my lips abstractedly, with my head leaning against the casement. He cleared his throat emphatically, but what was that to me? "Ahem" was not enough like either of my names, to justify my looking around.

He walked to the mantel-piece and inspected its familiar furnishings for a moment, making what seemed to me unnecessary noise and fuss as he did so. I would have given worlds for a pair of keen eyes at the back of my head during this artful performance, but as no such abnormal desire could be favored, I had to be satisfied with my conjectures and suppositions about his motives, and the various expressions that were chasing one another over his face as he went through this programme of failures.

At last, having spent his every indirect effort to attract my absorbed attention, he took a book from the table, and placing it deliberately under his arm, as if it were one of the many things that brought him into the room, he strode quietly towards me, saying in a very non-committal and yet courteous tone.

"I shall say goodbye, Miss Hampden, I hope you will take every care, of yourselves, and that we shall find you well on our return."

"Thank you," I answered, very politely, "there will be no fear of me. Good bye."

He took the tips of my three longest fingers, my thumb and little finger not having been ordained by nature to meet the cordial grasp of men of this stamp, and having repeated his good-bye, he stalked out of the room in conscious dignity and grandeur.

I made a mocking face, I know I did, when his back was turned. I hated him for not taking more notice of me than this. I did not want any violent attentions or silly love-making from him. He need not think I was a frivolous heart-hunter, for I was not. If I had been a man, he would have discussed politics or science or newspaper topics with me long before this. How did he know I could not match him in these being a woman? He was one of those wonderful erudites, I supposed, who think that a girl's conversational power lies rigidly between dry goods and sentiment. Poor things! What a heresy they foster? But what need I care? He was a glum, unsociable recluse anyway, may be at a loss for a second idea to keep his mind busy. He was certainly not worth worrying about, so I gathered up my needle-work that rested on the window-sill, and with a deliberate sullenness went in search of Hortense.

She had fallen asleep on the lounge in her bedroom, and the old nurse, having closed the shutters and drawn the curtains to keep out the afternoon light, was seated in the adjoining room, busily knitting a stocking.

Free, therefore, to dispose of myself as I wished for the next hour, I put on my things and went to stroll about the busy streets of the city.

Avoiding the fine, open thoroughfares, where business and pleasure were airing themselves, I leisurely turned down a gloomy by-way which was lined on either side by the massive walls and rear wings of huge, dismal, commercial establishments. Not a soul was visible anywhere, it was long and narrow and dirty, with deep ruts in the mud that lay in a thick covering over the road. It was intercepted, some distance down, by another street much worse to look at, and a little farther on, the woeful panorama became still more awful and repulsive. A little passage which seemed to have strayed away from all connection with human decency or sympathy ran to the left. It was so very narrow that though the surrounding buildings straggled up to only an ordinary height, the daylight scarcely penetrated it. And indeed it is to be wondered whether a bright sunlight would not but bring out more clearly than ever the appalling features of the place. Could gold and silver sunbeams hope to beautify the heaps of refuse and rubbish that were piled up here and there at intervals against some staggering fence? Could a flood of sunlight improve the dingy house-fronts that looked drearily out upon this cheerless prospect, or lend a charm to the hardened faces of those that peered through dirty window-panes, or who stood idly in some rickety doorway?

The spectacle was indeed heart-stirring.

"Why shines the sun except that he Makes gloomy nooks for grief to hide? And pensive shades for melancholy When all the earth is bright beside?"

The words seemed written on the dingy house-tops before me, and borne on the gusty breeze that wafted noxious odors far and wide. My heart turned sick, and yet this was what I had come out to see. I could not have gone away from a lively city like this, where towers and steeples of lofty and majestic buildings reared themselves in proud beauty towards heaven, without having also looked on the picture's gloomy side. Where so much wealth and fashion and finery dazzled the casual eye, there must, said I, be also 'poverty, hunger and dirt,' and were my words not fully verified now?

I have been warned more than once of the danger of going unattended along these haunts of misery and vice, but whether or not it is because my motive is one of pure philanthropy, and my sentiments exclusively sympathetic I do not know, I have, however, escaped up to this without interference from the lowly inhabitants of these obscure corners, and can vouch for the latent gallantry of many a ragged hero, who restored a fallen umbrella or parcel with as much courtesy as his brother clad in broadcloth ever showed me.

That human mind which feasts exclusively upon the dainty morsels of life is only half educated, though there are grand fragments of knowledge and experience to be gathered among the haunts of high art, and where stand the immortal monuments of power and fame, though the heart may swell with a just enthusiasm at sight of the marvels which have risen out of gold piles, the coffers of nations or individuals, I hold that all the majesty of the best-spent wealth has not power to awaken such a depth of feeling in the human breast as one of these tottering huts with its mouldy walls and mud-spattered window-panes, the "Home Sweet Home" of flesh and blood as real and as sensitive as our pampered own.

To think that in the world's great capitals there is squalor which could never compare with what my eyes then beheld! Think of Murray Hill and the Alaska District, Fell's Point, or the Basin, and what a sea of human wrecks we contemplate in a fraction of America's continent alone. And again, think of the waste of wealth the wide world over. Think how vice is wined and dined, and clad in the finest of fabrics, while honest humanity, in helpless hunger, cries out to ears that are deaf and hearts that have turned to stone. Oh, well may it be said that the rich man's chances of heaven are as those of the camel going through the eye of a needle, if the recording angel pencils down the use and abuse of every dangerous penny that might have been well spent, and was not.

With such reflections as these I turned my steps slowly back through the dingy by-ways.

The afternoon was waning, and the hour was near when daily toil would be suspended, and the workers would repair to these their miserable homes. I had met a few already with their picks and shovels on their ragged shoulders, and had stood to see them vanish under these crooked doorways where little children lingered waiting and watching for their cheerless coming. I saw some others lay down the instruments of their honest labor outside the corner entrance of a large but smoky row of wooden tenements that skirted one gloomy street. A doorway cut through the sharp angles of the corner of the building, allowed a small canopy to project in a triangular peak over two dirty battered steps that led into a dimly-lit room on the ground floor. Suspended from the point of the canopy was a lamp of a dull red color, which with rain spatterings and droppings, and a long-standing accumulation of cobwebs and dust had grown barely translucent, and must have emitted but a sickly light at night-fall. A worn and ragged rope-mat lay on the second step, and across the upper half of the dilapidated door (which was of glass) a faded screen was drawn that kept the inner room secure from the curious gaze of passers-by.